What If?: Zathura
by DragonWriter-girl
Summary: What if there was someone else there with Walter and Danny? Someone who knew the secret of Zathura...but won't tell them anything? And HOW does she know? And WHEN will I stop being so mysterious and actually let you read the story? The answer...now.


Zathura

My version

So, I noticed that lots of these stories are centered around the category of 'romance'. I'm still pretty new to this, but I thought that I'd try some of that. Basically I made up another character, for Walter.

Prepare yourself.

Maisie Isla Averil Aila Mckenzie Rose Canterli (Or just Maisie- Walter's best friend (that's a girl). She's smart, fun, nice, pretty, basically an all around awesome person, except for one thing- she can't always cope with the problems at home. Her parents (Margaret Canterli, John Adie) are fighting, close to divorce. When the fighting starts, she just grabs her bag and leaves. But she can handle the fighting between Walter and Danny, and sometimes she's the only one who can stop them from trying to kill each other. She played Zathura before with her cousin and sister, so she knows more about the game than Danny and Walter.

Oh, and she has a HUGE crush on Walter. Luckily for her, he never notices. He's too busy convincing himself that she never would like him. Same old, same old.

And with that, let's start the story. I'll start from right after Danny finds Zathura.

Oh, and in this story, Walter does not have any girlfriend that we hear about in that one line at the beginning. Just thought that you should know.

_Knock knock._

Walter walked to the door. It was probably one of those door to door salesmans or something.

He pulled open the door. Standing there was a  
girl about his age, with orange-red hair held back from one side of her pale face with a yellow flower clip. She was wearing a yellow top with floral print in green, pink, orange, etc., paired with a simple pair of blue jeans. (A/N - I don't know, some readers probably care about that stuff, sooo...)

"Hey," said Maisie. "Can I come in?"

"Are your parents fighting again?" asked Walter.

"Yeah."

"Come on in."

She smiled. "Thanks."

She walked right through the door. Every time she came, she was always amazed by this old house.

"Mind if I go look around for a while?" asked Maisie. She loved anything old.

"Um, sure. Just don't go in my dad's office."

"Okay. Thanks again."

"No problem."

She walked down the hallway. Walter smiled. Strange-he and Danny hated this old house, with it's creaky stairs and old rusty furnace, and Maisie seemed truly fascinated. Woah. Maybe he was around her a little too much-he usually avoided big words like "fascinated", even in his head. (A/N - Did I mention that Maisie's a bit of a nerd?)

He walked into the living room and sat in front of the TV again. Might as well, nothing better to do until Danny came back upstairs.

And then Danny walked right in.

Of course.

"You're really mean." he stated.

"Dad said not to play in there."

"Look what I found in the basement." said Danny, walking right up to Walter's chair.

Walter glanced at what Danny was holding. It looked like the box for a board game. Something called Zathura.

"Looks dumb and old." he told his brother. Just tell it like it is.

"I like it."

"Yeah, you would, it's for babies."

Danny ignored him. He walked over to a clear space on the floor and opened the board game. It was really cool. There was one clear path, with different coloured spaces. There were two rocket ships that he guessed would move along the tracks. At the end was a giant Z.

"Walter, this is so cool! Check this out!"

He lifted the game out of the box and set it down over to the side. He frowned.

"What's Zathura?" he asked. No answer. As usual.

"Will you play with me?"

"No."

"I won't cheat."

"Yeah, you will."

Danny wished that his brother would play the game, but maybe he could play it by himself. He wound the key twice, then pushed the red GO button. The numbers started spinning.

5.

The red rocket ship piece started moving. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 spaces. It stopped.

Then there was a _Ping!_ and a card popped out of a slot.

"A card came out!" he exclaimed.

"Fascinating!" said Walter, obviously sarcastic.

Danny took the card and tried to read the words.

"Me...Mete...Meor sho...Meeor sh...sho..."

He held the card in front of his older brother, blocking his view of the TV.

"Read this for me."

Walter sighed. He took the card.

"Meteor shower. Take evasive action."

"What's evasive action?" asked Danny.

"It's when you get out of the way of something."

"What exactly am I supposed to get out of the way of, exactly?"

"I have no idea, all it says is take evasive a-" Walter was cut off by something shooting through the paper. They looked down at the hole in the floor. It was smoking slightly. They looked up. Sure enough, there was a hole in the ceiling, too. Small holes, but still. Freaky.

Then the TV went all fuzzy like there was no reception, even though it was working perfectly just a second ago.

Then they looked back at the ceiling.

And then another small object came barroling through to the floor, leaving two more small holes.

Then more of them started falling. One hit the picture of their grandmother, smashing it.

"Grandma!" exclaimed Danny. (Y'know, I think I'm using the word exclaimed too much. Sorry.)

Then the bookshelves were hit. Multiple times.

"It's meteors!" yelled Danny. "Take evasive action! Take evasive action!"

The 6 year old started running around in circles with his hands over his head. He looked like he was being attacked by pigeons. But now was hardly the time to tease.

Walter started running around too, looking for somewhere safe from the meteors, which had pretty much destroyed every object except the furniture and the TV.

Then he saw the fireplace. The stone above it was keeping the meteors from hitting anyting inside. He ran over and crawled in.

"Danny, in here!"

Danny was still running around like a maniac, trying to dodge the meteors.

"Danny, hurry up, it's safe!"

Danny tried to run to the fireplace, but a meteor hit right in front of him and he had to run the other way.

"Danny, come on, hurry!"

Danny grabbed his pet hampster's cage (or it might have been a gerbil, not sure which) and ran over to the fireplace.

"Danny come on, hurry up! Hurry hurry hurry! Come on, get in!"

Danny crawled into the fireplace and pulled his pet after him. They watched as the meteors continued to destroy what was once a living room, although it now looked like a stampede of elephants had taken over.

Maisie looked back at the doorway. She had just been studying the workings of the furnace when she heard yells from upstairs. She cautiously climbed the stairs to the hallway. She could hear things being smashed apart. Not again. She ran to tell the two boys to stop fighting.

She took one look at what was happening and immediatly knew that this was not just another fight between the two brothers.

"WHAT HAPPENED?" she yelled. She could barely hear herself.

"NO IDEA," Walter yelled back. "ALL THESE METEORS JUST STARTED FALLING EVERYWHERE AFTER I READ THAT CARD!"

"WHAT CARD?"

"THE ONE FROM THE GAME DANNY WAS PLAYING!" then Walter frowned. "WAIT...HOW COME YOU AREN'T BEING PELTED WITH METEORS?" he asked/shouted.

"THERE AREN'T ANY OUT IN THE HALL! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST COME OUT HERE?"

"Uhhh...LET ME GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT."

Maisie rolled her eyes. Boys. What idiots.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the meteor shower was...over.

No more little explosions. Everything was still destroyed, but at least they could walk around and not _die_.

*This is Sportscenter!*

All three of them looked at the TV. Clear as day.

*Schilling deals no love-*

The ceiling crashed down on the TV. Needless to say, the TV was now unwatchable, unless you want to stare at a pile of wood and ash.

Walter and Danny walked over to where the TV used to be.

After a pause, Danny said, "I don't think we should play that game anymore.

Then they looked up at the hole in the ceiling.

And saw the night sky.

Now, there are moments when you're a kid when you see something so strange that you can't believe that it's happening. And some days when this happens, you can think of something to say that will make everyone laugh at the situation and turn it into a joke.

Unfortunately, this is not one of those days.

No, this is the kind of day when all you can do is stand there and stare stupidly at whatever it is that's so strange, trying to tell yourself that it's not happening.

And worse, the coolest kid you've ever met is watching.

Typical.

"I don't think we should play that game anymore." Danny said quietly.

Walter walked over to the hallway. He looked at the holes the meteors had left.

"That's weird, how the meteors only hit the living room."

Then Maisie spoke up.

"Wait. This happened because of a game?" she asked, frowning.

"Listen, I know it's hard to believe, but-"

"No..." said Maisie weakly, "Please no...not Zathura..."

It's probably not very good. Sorry. I'm hoping it doesn't sound too horrible.

Please be nice. Constructive critisism is okay, but please don't say I'm a horrible writer. Even though I am.

And I will know what you mean if you say things like 'special', 'unique', or 'interesting'. Or different.

Review? I don't really care whether or not you review – I'm gonna keep writing either way - but hey, everyone else seems to ask for it.


End file.
